


mist and moss

by ObscureReference



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen, Hinted Pynch, The last three mostly only mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 06:29:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6554854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObscureReference/pseuds/ObscureReference
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Maybe I dreamt you," he said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	mist and moss

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think I'd ever write a Raven Boys fic with the nuance and character complexity it deserves, but "maybe i dreamt you" stuck with me forever and I think about it a lot.

When Ronan opened his eyes, he was clutching Adam’s shirt between his clenched fingers.

It was one of his work shirts, one Ronan had seen only a handful of times when he’s stopped by the garage before Adam could change. The gray material was stained dark brown in several places from oil. It didn’t smell like oil, though. Somewhat, it smelled like Adam. Mostly, it smelled like mist and moss.

It was possible that _was_ what Adam smelled like these days. Mist and moss. The scent of Cabeswater.

_“Maybe I dreamt you,” he said._

He wanted to tear the t-shirt apart in his hands. He clutched it so tightly it hurt.

The t-shirt smelled like mist and moss the way everything that came from Cabeswater smelled of mist and moss. An underlying scent, one layered beneath whatever scent Ronan thought the object should have as he plucked from the branches of his dreams.

If he really focused, he thought he could smell the scent of oil that should have been there. It may have been his imagination.

That was what the lotion he had given Adam smelled like. Mist and moss. The forest. Cabeswater.

The other day, Adam’s hand had trailed by his face in order to reach something beyond Ronan’s field of vision, and Ronan had caught a brief whiff of his skin as he did. Mist. Moss.

He had never noticed how Adam had smelled before Cabeswater. Before Adam had made the deal. Now all Ronan could smell was what he expected: mist and moss. He wondered if it was because of the lotion he had given Adam or because Cabeswater was now a part of Adam somehow. He wondered if Adam had always smelled like that.

_“Maybe I dreamt you,” he said._

Maybe I dreamt you, he thought. He had dreamt a brother, a monster, a raven. He could dream anything.

Could I have dreamt you, he thought. Could he have dreamt Adam, dreamt his monster of a father and wisp of a mother? Could he have dreamt Adam and his stupid pride? Adam and the way he fit into his skin, Adam and the twist of his mouth, Adam and the set of his shoulders, the curve of his fingers, Adam who was now a part of Cabeswater, who had possibly always been a part of Cabeswater.

Ronan closed his eyes and tried to remember when he had met Adam, the first time Gansey had brought him to Monmouth. The thought of Noah drifted through his head instead. Something was pounding in his temple.

Adam, Adam, Adam.

_“Maybe I dreamt you,” he said._

Gansey was awake when Ronan slammed his bedroom door open, but he said nothing when Ronan stomped outside, his eyes merely trailing Ronan across the floor and then drifting back to the diorama of Henrietta as Ronan vanished from his line of sight.

Ronan, a lighter in one hand and a t-shirt in the other, slammed the door behind him.

As he let the flame lick the first corner of the cloth, he thought he might spot Noah watching him from a window if he bothered to turn around. He could feel a heavy, yet somehow simultaneously empty stare aimed at the back of his neck.

He did not turn around.

Gansey didn’t comment when Ronan walked back in several minutes later smelling like smoke, the dying embers of a t-shirt smoldering in the dry parking lot beyond the front door. Something on his mind, Ronan guessed, but he didn’t bother to ask what. He shut his bedroom door behind him roughly.

_“Maybe I dreamt you,” he said._

Ronan wanted to chew up those words and swallow them, spit them across the floor so they wouldn’t come crawling up his throat afterwards.

_“Thanks for the straight teeth, then,” Adam replied._

Adam, Adam, Adam.

Mist and moss.

On her perch by the window, Chainsaw screeched.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to leave a comment below or hmu on my tumblr (http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/) for whatever reason.


End file.
